This was a warning signal to China, the US’s main rival in the South China Sea and the world.

While Trump is more unpredictable than previous US presidents, he isn’t just some “mad man” on the loose. Just like his predecessor Barack Obama, Trump’s aim is to maintain US imperialist influence in the world.

His deadly war games flow from the logic of imperialism.

Imperialism is a global system. It’s not just about who’s the biggest bully on the block at any particular time.

Competition between rival firms is at the heart of capitalism. As capitalism developed, this also took on the form of competition between rival capitalist states—and that rivalry spills over into war.

At the end of the Cold War the US was the world’s sole superpower. But it began to face increasing economic competition from states like China.

Weakness

The US tried to overcome this economic weakness with brute military force. It hoped that a swift victory in Iraq in 2003 would assert its dominance over a key choke point in the world economy.